[alexanderperrin]

A couple of years ago I produced this as a study into procedural heightmaps, shadow mapping and online geometry loading with Three.js. I had big plans for it but abandoned it half way.

I found it on my hard-drive the other day and thought it might be worth putting up in the case that it's of any use to anyone! The project is full of performance issues and other weird things but hey I hope it's worth something! Enjoy.

Code lives here: https://github.com/alexanderperrin/threejs-ballooning

Works on desktop and (most) mobiles. You can use the arrow keys or touch the screen to move the balloon.

[salzig]

Im surprised, ever and ever again, how well this works on mobile.

[alexanderperrin]

Super glad it's working for you! May I ask what sort of device you're using? I'm quite curious.

[dvh]

To give you second data point, it crashes (probably OOM) on my $39 phone.

[swiley]

Where do you get a $39 phone?

[dvh]

It's myPhone Pocket, Android 6, 512MB ram, 4GB flash. I found it now cheapest for €42 [1], year ago I found it for €39. The only downside is that default apps cannot be uninstalled, that makes the phone almost unusable. It was never locked to any carrier. It's dual sim but I never had sim in it, I use it only as pocket-wifi-browser (102 grams!) and for app development.

[1] https://www.gigastore.sk/4-az-48-vcetne/myphone-pocket-cerny...

[vasiliys]

BestBuy has "disposable" androids - probably subsidized by the carrier they're locked to. Just checked - $25 for an ATT phone, used to be $30/$40 with/without sale.

I'm certain other places do too.

[saagarjha]

Works great on my iPhone SE–better than it does on my MacBook Pro.

[knolan]

Works great on my iPhone 7.

[jbay808]

It runs beautifully on my Sony Xperia XZ1 compact. Firefox. Very nice.

[zius]

Works flawlessly for me on a Pixel 2XL, quite surprised.

[osrec]

On a high end phone such as yours, it should not be all that surprising that the performance is good!

On my low end Samsung J3, it is rather choppy, but I feel it can be improved, given that this animation is lovely and smooth: http://campoallecomete.it/#!/en

I think people assume rather quickly that animation in a mobile browser will be janky. Truth is, if done well, it really doesn't need to be.

[tnolet]

Gorgeous, and works better on my Ipad than my Macbook. Does anyone have any idea why?

[alexanderperrin]

Same goes with me actually. I'm not entirely sure but I think most of it is attributed to the huge amount of optimisations and refinements that have gone into the modern mobile GPU's. While the mobiles don't seem to be quite as diverse in their capability, they excel at what they can do!

The future is a strange place.

[tlarkworthy]

Runs about 7fps on budget Android Samsung J530F, which cost 160 euros.

[webb5]

Microsoft go/firefox working perfect. love it.

[arcbyte]

What so you use your Go for and does the battery life bother you?

I want one, but 4 hours seems too short for me

[webb5]

Was a present, and is treated as a play thing. General low level use gives about 6 hours, browsing and word etc, but if pushed by a game or couple of vbox nix v-machines (just to see if it could) about that 4 hour mark. As a secondary device it's not been a problem, and it charges pretty quick.

It's a nice thing. Best feature is the flap, imo. all tablet-like devices should have them! I've not got the proper keyboard, but am tempted.

[BiggusDijkus]

€380 Pocophone F1 with Chrome. What an eye candy!

[dublo7]

Moto g6 play smooth as can be

[punnerud]

Works great on iPhone 6!

[rolleTx]

Works in my iPhone XR

[salzig]

iPhone X.

[nullandvoid]

S7 here on firefox and chrome @ 15-20 frames, looks like my phone is a little dated!

[androidgirl]

This is awesome!!! Amazing work.

[johnmarinelli]

Nice pastoral-feeling work. In the readme you feature "Shore detection algorithms for boathouse placement". Does the algorithm have a name, or did you create it from scratch? I'd be curious to learn how it works.

[alexanderperrin]

Thanks! I actually can't remember exactly how it worked, but I think it was a pretty simple process of selecting points at the level of the water combined with some sort of normal calculation. Just used it for placing the boathouses in semi-logical locations.

I should probably take it out of the readme just in case someone gets all excited and then disappointed when they realise it's all smoke and mirrors and nonsense. Ha!